Lucia sat next to me at the table. I was in the same place as before but she set a chair on the corner close by. I could feel her trying to reassure me. I suppose she did in a way. But the others worried me sick. Llewellyn and Bonello were courteous enough, and Kaufman proved what an old buddy he was by calling me Sam every five minutes. But the whole thing frightened me. Hewit and Richardson had yet to speak but the look in their eyes was enough. I was to be used when it suited them - made to do what they wanted - to be manipulated. They were positioning me for something - I could feel it.
Kaufman resumed by saying, "We'll go back to Enrico's story later. Meanwhile remember the dates, will you, Sam? They're important. Franka was murdered in 1963, right? The same year you opened The Point of View. A critical year for the Mafia. Police were moving against them in Italy like never before. We were hounding them in the States," he paused, as if struck by a sudden thought. "By the way, the name Joe Valachi mean anything to you?"
"No."
He smiled briefly. "That proves you're not an American. Valachi was a convicted trafficker in heroin. In June ‘62 he was doing a stretch in the Atlanta Penitentiary when he suddenly went berserk and killed a guy. He said the guy was planning to kill him and he got in first. Anyway, afterwards he realised he killed the wrong man - got into a hell of a state about it, and sang his heart out to the FBI in exchange for State protection. Kennedy called it the biggest breakthrough ever made in combating organised crime in the States."
"Senator Robert Kennedy," Hewit spoke for the first time, to add a word of explanation. "He was Attorney General at the time."
Kaufman nodded impatiently. "Kennedy was going after the mobs in a big way. He clashed with Hoover about it. When Kennedy started, the FBI had only four agents fighting organised crime in the whole of New York - while four hundred were tied up watching domestic communists. Well, Kennedy reversed the emphasis, understand?"
I nodded, which meant I heard what he said. Understanding was another matter entirely.
Hewit said, "Valachi's information helped us hit scores of Mafia activities. But mostly the Mafia pulled out when we arrived. Take drug trafficking - when we hit the pushers, the Mafia faded. Sure, they still control heroin imports into the States, but now they let the blacks and Puerto Ricans run the wholesale market. The Mafia took a step backwards. Get the picture?"
I fidgeted uneasily. "Look, this has nothing to do with me. Nothing whatsoever. I have never ever been involved-"
"Sam!" Kaufman shouted: "Will you let us finish, for Chrissakes?"
"What's the point - when it's nothing to do with me. I don't-"
"Just wait a minute, will you?" Kaufman snapped.
We glared angrily at each other, but it seemed time I put my foot down. He had called it my story earlier. That was rubbish!
Llewellyn scraped his pipe into an ashtray. "Bill's just anxious to give you the background to what happened in the sixties," he said slowly. "The main point is that for the first time in history the Mafia came under simultaneous pressure in the United States and Italy. Mafia families reacted differently. Some changed their ways, adopted new tactics, switched their activities - some even emigrated. In particular, some emigrated to the United Kingdom, and eventually to London."
"The Mafia in London?"
Bonello answered, "Yes, Mr Harris. For example, Milan was too small to hide Fiore Serracino. I had been given a squad of five hundred men to fight the Mafia and, in particular, to catch the man who murdered my sister and her husband. But Fiore got away. We found out how later. How he slipped through our net and returned to Sicily, and how from there he was smuggled to Malta aboard a fishing boat. How he acquired Maltese papers, a passport, a new name, new identity - and how after that he went to live in Cardiff."
Cardiff? A note of warning jangled in the back of my mind, but before I could pursue it Llewellyn said, "Of course we never knew that until much later."
"Pieces of jigsaw," Richardson said softly.
Llewellyn barely paused. "Fiore Serracino was a rich man. He had enough money in Swiss banks to retire. The pity is men like him never do. He fitted into the sleazier parts of Cardiff like a hand in a glove. Of course, the Maltese have controlled the vice trade in Cardiff for years - we knew that. Prostitution, the cafe clearing houses on Bute Street, protection rackets - but we were gradually cleaning them up. Until Serracino arrived, in the late sixties. We never knew it was him then, but suddenly the vice trade became a lot better organised. The men running it had more money. They were buying greater influence, gaining more protection from authority. The rackets started to grow bigger."
"That's an understatement," Kaufman interrupted. "We found out later that Serracino organised some sort of conference in Cardiff in 'sixty-eight or 'sixty-nine. Not just Mafia either. Certainly the mobs from New York were represented, but other known criminals attended as well. An organisation called the Pipeline was set up there - and believe me, the Pipeline is some organisation."
Richardson nodded. "By the early seventies the Pipeline was operating illegal activities in various parts of the country. Mainly at ports - Portsmouth, Harwich, Southampton - suddenly the Pipeline was everywhere. Except we never recognised it - we just put it down to a general increase in criminal activity."
Hewit cleared his throat and broke in with a sudden question. "Mr Harris, have you ever heard the expression - 'this thing of ours'?"
This thing of ours! I swung round to Lucia - remembering her startled face in the park. What the hell did it mean?
Hewit watched me closely, waiting for an answer. When I failed to provide one he said, "Strictly translated it means 'our thing'. Strictly translated from the Italian that is. In that language the words are cosa nostra."
Cosa Nostra! The Mafia! Is that what they thought? That I was connected with the Mafia, simply because of an expression I used?
"You've heard it then?" Llewellyn asked quickly.
"What does it mean, Sam?" Kaufman snapped.
"You know bloody well what it means. Why ask me? Am I being accused of-"
"We never knew what it meant until ‘62. Valachi told us. Who told you, Sam?"
"I don't know - books - films-"
"Have you had any dealings with the Mafia, Sam?"
"For Christ's sake! What are you saying?"
"You've had contact with the Mafia."
"You're out of your bloody mind!"
"Corrao was Mafia, Sam. Remember Corrao? The man who tried to buy Apex Holdings?"
"Corrao?" I puffed nervously on a cigarette, hiding behind a smoke screen. "So what?" I struggled to sound normal. "I mean, I never did business with him. I only met him once. You must know-"
"What do you think of the West End now?" Kaufman changed course unexpectedly.
"What dc you mean - 'what do I think of it'? Dammit, I've hardly had a chance to go back. I've only been out-"
"But you have been back. Looked up old friends - that sort of thing, you have been back haven't you, Sam?"
"I-" words dried up as I caught the knowing look on Henderson's face. Henderson had created that scene at Oliver's. He knew I had been back. And he knew how the West End had reacted. He knew it was in his eyes. They all knew!
"A lot has changed, hasn't it, Sam," Kaufman said. "And I'll tell you why. Because the Pipeline has started to take over."
I remembered Tony Fields - 'A lot's changed, Sam'. Why was I sweating? My mouth was as dry as a bone and I reached for a glass of water.
Kaufman said, "It's big, Sam. This thing of theirs. And getting bigger."
"So why tell me? You're the law. Or you say you are. Break it up. It's not my story, Kaufman. It's nothing to do with me-"
"You became involved when they tried to buy Apex."
"I never became involved."
Kaufman suddenly lost his temper. "They know you. Corrao's orders were to take Apex without hurting you. Without hurting you, Sam. Why?"
"How the hell do I know? You've got it wrong. You're tryin
g to implicate me in something I know nothing about-"
"The men running the Pipeline know you," Kaufman insisted. "We're certain."
"You said that man Fiore - Fiore Serracino runs it. I never met-"
"I never said that. Serracino helped set it up, but he's not the top man - at most he's three or four in the chain-"
"Chain?"
"That's how they work. Especially at the lower levels. One man reports to another - the only contact is the man above and the man below him. That's the chain-"
"How do you know?"
"How in hell's name do you think we know?" Kaufman snarled. "We've been trying to break the Pipeline for seven years now. Seven long years. And the nearest we ever got is the tenth man in the chain. And we made him talk. He told us Corrao was part of the Pipeline. And he told us Corrao's orders as far as you were concerned."
I was sweating badly now. Sweating and frightened. "So ask Corrao - don't ask me."
"Corrao was nine in the chain. He disappeared."
"Well, what about number eleven?"
"Gone. They've all gone. It's part of the system. If we pick a man up the contacts on either side of him vanish within hours."
I shook my head. "I still don't understand. This has nothing to do with me. Nothing-"
"Why did they try to take Apex without hurting you?"
"I don't know!"
"The top man knows you. He's a friend of yours. He's been to Ashley Grange, gambled at The Derby, seen the show at The Point of View-"
"You're wrong! Wrong! I'm not involved and by Christ you'll not get me involved!"
Kaufman snapped back, "We'll see about that. Take a look at this film, buddy boy." He leapt from his chair and crossed to the windows. He shouted over his shoulder at me as he drew the drapes. "Take a good look. Then say you're not involved."
Before I could answer a disembodied voice came from the loudspeakers. "Sam Harris? Winner Harris you mean? Yeah, I knew him. We did bird together in Brixton."
I was still trying to place the voice when his image appeared on the screen. Out of focus to begin with, then it jerked until the definition improved. A middle-aged man sat in an armchair. The camera moved to a head and shoulders shot and I recognised him. I mean I knew his face - placing him, putting a name to him, was something else.
The man said, "Hard bastard, Harris. Most of us stayed clear of him. He got special treatment in Brixton. Worked in the library, nothing manual, know what I mean? But a real hard case. One night the feller in the next cell to him got worked over - real bad, hospital job. Never found out who did it, but most of us reckoned it was Harris."
The film changed to a thin-faced, foxy-looking man, balancing a cup and saucer in his lap as he fumbled through his pockets for a light for his cigarette. "None of us knew Harris well," he said. "Not really well - kept himself apart too much for that. But those rumours about losing all his money were rubbish. I mean they had to be. Harris was looked after in the nick. Any trouble and the screws closed ranks round him like a private bloody army - and that costs money, take it from me. Harris ain't broke and he ain't alone neither. He had some sort of set-up working for him on the outside. He ran it from Brixton, passing messages through the screws like they were messenger boys. The West End's not my scene, mate, but I'll tell you this - Harris will be back, he ain't called Winner for nothing, is he?" The man smiled his thin crafty grin and put a light to his cigarette. "Best bloke to talk to is Micky Blisset. He got closer to Harris than anyone."
I watched in amazement. None of it was true. Memories of people met in prison flickered through my mind. I had worked in the library, but apart from that it was a pack of lies. But Micky Blisset rang a bell. I shared a cell with him once, for about eight weeks. Then he was there - up on the screen - larger than life and seeming to look right at me.
"People could never make head nor tail of Harris," he said. "Never knew which way to take him. Well, he was never your average villain, was he? In fact he once told me he never knocked that feller off - the one he got sent down for." Blisset shrugged, as if sceptical about the whole thing. "But Harris is still big time, and it's true about people working for him. And about the list of names. Buggered if I know who's on it or where it gets kept - but he's got it all right. I asked him about it once. 'Insurance,' he says, 'anything happens to me and that list gets published. There're names on there to blow this thing of theirs right open.' So I asked him outright if that's what he's going to do - spill the beans when he gets out? Know what he said? 'Mickey,' he said, 'you don't understand business. That list is collateral. I don't want to bust these boys, I want to join them. That list is my way of buying my way back in'."
Then the screen darkened and went blank. Kaufman swished the drapes open and the sweet normality of daylight flooded back into the room. It all registered, but only just. I felt bewildered, like a backward child trying to grasp a difficult lesson.
"Still say you're not involved?" Kaufman sneered.
"It's a bloody pack of lies. Who were those men? Why were they saying those things?"
I looked round the table for an explanation. Llewellyn avoided my eye, just sat there puffing his old briar and filling the room with the scent of Dutch tobacco. And when I looked at Henderson he looked away. Richardson was examining something in a pocketbook. Hewit was looking out of the window. Lucia was staring at the floor next to me. Bonello was looking at the ceiling. Nobody would look at me.
Kaufman said softly, "There are ten of those men, Sam. They all did time in Brixton. They started coming out three months ago. At staggered intervals. The last man was released a couple of weeks ago. They're all spreading the same story."
"Spreading it? That story?" I gestured at the screen.
Kaufman nodded comfortably, "To anyone who will listen."
"But why? Jesus Christ, no wonder I'm treated as a leper. They've got to be stopped."
Kaufman shook his head: "We can't do that. You see - they are our men. Undercover agents. They are spreading that story on our say so."
I could hardly believe my ears! None of it made sense.
Then Kaufman added, "You've been set up, Sam. For the second time round."
I gripped the arms of the chair, half rising to my feet, shock waves bursting like shells through a red mist blurring my vision. "You bastards! BASTARDS! Who the hell are you anyway?"
"I told you. My name is Kaufman. We'll go into the details later."
"We'll go into the details now!", I shouted. Then I realised what he had said. 'You've been set up, Sam. For the second time round.' My blurred eyes found Henderson across the room. "You said you were Home Office. Is that true?"
He nodded. His lips were set in a grim line and most of the colour had drained from his face.
I sat down again, very slowly. "So you're Home Office," I said softly, still looking at Henderson. "And you know I was innocent. You knew all along and you let them send me-"
"Sam!" Kaufman shouted. "We didn't know. Not to begin with. But we do now. Grab hold of that, will you? It'll help you understand-"
"BASTARDS!" I buried my head in my hands, interlacing my fingers in an effort to stop trembling. They knew! Knew I was innocent. Suddenly I was shaking like a leaf, bewilderment, anxiety. I took a few deep breaths and shuddered as if someone had walked over my grave. Then I just felt drained - drained and empty, and as limp as a rag. Somebody touched my elbow and when I looked up Henderson was next to me with a glass in his hand. "It's whisky," he said. "Ice and water are already in - just the way you like it. Drink up, you'll feel better."
I slopped some of the drink down. Two of the others were serving coffee. Hewit was pouring from a percolator at a side table. Richardson carried cups around the table. Sugar and cream arrived. I shovelled in some sugar and pushed the cream away.
The hot coffee helped - even though my hand shook when I lifted a cup. They say hot drinks are good for shock. Kaufman was mad. They were all mad. But the insane don't sit around country houses pretending
to be Home Office and narcotics men - do they? Do they!
"You bastards," I said softly. "Why wasn't I released immediately? Why-"
"Why does an innocent man plead guilty?" Kaufman snapped back.
"I - we- there was no way of proving it. No way of clearing myself-"
"Yeah? That's what you say. Where I come from there's only one way a guy takes a rap like that. And proof doesn't come into it." I stared at him, only partly understanding. "Omertà," Bonello said: "The conspiracy of silence. We had to be sure-"
"You thought I was -"
"You bet we thought," Kaufman growled. "Especially as you pleaded guilty-"
"When you could have told the truth," Bonello said. I looked from face to face and wondered just how much they knew? How much of what had really happened on that night three years ago.
Kaufman shrugged. "You had your reasons, we had ours. You are the best chance we've ever had. Our best hope of breaking the Pipeline is to nail the top man. And he knows you. Which means you know him-"
"You're wrong. Completely wrong. I would know someone-" "Not for what he is," Kaufman interrupted. "He's too clever for that. Get it into your head, will you? This isn't some tin pot outfit. It's vast. As big as your top companies here - Shell, ICI, Unilever bigger than them and growing twice as fast-" "Rubbish! The casino business is big, but-" "Crap, Sam! Wake up, will you? Forget restaurants and casinos - discos and clubs, they're a nothing. A front that's all. Good meeting places - channels to launder the Pipeline's money-" "Then what the hell are we talking about?" "Narcotics - and the whole ragbag of rackets that goes with it. You got any idea how big that is? Like fifty billion dollars a year in the States. Like as much again across Europe-"
"It's not my story," I said stonily, retreating to my earlier position.
"Those men made it your story," Kaufman pointed to the screen. "Those men reckon you've got a list of names, Sam. Men in the Pipe-line. Men in the-" "But I haven't-"
"Yeah, well the Pipeline don't believe that - they've already taken the bait."
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 50